Posts filed under 'M2M / Connected Devices'

At the outset, we would like to wish a Very Happy New Year to our readers and Thank You for your continued patronage of CellStrat content. This is the first post of this year and starts with lot of hopes and aspirations for our readers and ourselves in the Year 2013.

As is customary each year, the year kicks off with the massive Consumer Electronics Show or CES in Las Vegas. We are glad to report from the ground there (well, just kidding) – we are hooked to the internet and getting minute by minute news feed from the ground so it is same as being there physically (almost).

Every year, either Bill Gates or Steve Balmer provide the opening keynote at CES but this year it was taken by Qualcomm CEO, a pre-dominantly mobile chip firm. This highlights the importance of Mobile to all things electronic now. With smarter devices and smarter everything, mobile chips are in almost everything we see in the future right from home appliances to mobile devices to industrial equipment, as well as most automotive assets like cars, trucks and containers.

Paul Jacobs explained his “Born Mobile” mantra today and there was a surprise when Steve Ballmer joined him on stage briefly – Paul said that even Microsoft has adopted the Born Mobile mantra. Paul launched Qaulcomm’s new Snapdragon 800 processors, which are the fastest mobile processors on earth as per him. These chips are about 75% faster than previous processors and can deliver HD video seamlessly as well as support Ultra HD television.

Sony launches new signature smartphones

Sony launched new Xperia Z Android smartphones, which have a five-inch screen, HD 1080p Reality Display and 13 megapixel camera. It is powered by a Qualcomm quad-core Snapdragon processor. What was unique is the new One Touch functionality that allows the device to wirelessly interact with other Sony devices such as speakers, headphones and TVs. Sony showcased a new Bravia TV which can display the phone content from the new smartphones if the phone is tapped to the TV remote.

Intel launches new smartphone chip family

Intel launched new chips for smartphones and tablets at CES today. Intel has been late to the mobile party and struggled againts ARM Holding and Qualcomm in this space. Now it is trying to get its mobile act together with an array of new smartphone and tablet chips.

The company’s new Atom processors which are in the next-gen category will be available in 2013 holiday period. The new chips assume Touch based interface as a key aspect of the functionality.

Samsung brings smartphone experience to it’s TVs

Samsung announced seamless integration between its smartphones and Smart TVs. The phone functionality of Touch and Speech recognition will be made available in Smart TVs. Samsung is probably the biggest success story of 2012 and has taken market share in almost all categories.

AT&T focuses on Digital Life and Project VIP

AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega showcased the new Digital Life offering which falls in the Connected Devices or M2M category. This solution involves a Connected Home and Security apparatus and applications with remote management and monitoring of the Home by consumers and home owners. Glenn Lurie, head of AT&T’s Connected Devices business said, that less than 20% of US homes have security and less than 1% homes have home automation.

AT&T is pioneering the M2M space and a global leader in evolving and maturing M2M business models around Home and Security.

AT&T also announced APIs for developers to provide advanced call management applications – these probably use the IMS or IP Multimedia Subsystem interface to the wireless network.

AT&T also announced its intentions to deploy its new LTE network to 300 million people by end-2014. Currently, AT&T’s LTE network reaches 170 million people in USA which places it in second ranking behind Verizon in LTE deployments.

Project VIP (Velocity IP) is AT&T’s new $14 billion investment initiative to focus on LTE, Connected Home and other emerging areas.

Other news

Other news at CES today included LG announcing special emphasis on NFC as a linking tech to link all its products and providing an ability to put all these devices on the Connected Grid for remote management and control, Nvidia launching the world’s fastest mobile processor (as per its claims at least) and NTT Docomo launching a new M2M platform for global service providers using Jasper Wireless platform.

If one were to summarize, this year’s main themes seem to be Smarter and Faster Mobile Chips, Connectedness, Smart Devices, Digital Television etc. Let’s see what the remaining days of CES offer. We are watching the news in excitement about the up and coming technologies at this event. To get full coverage on this event, visit the event website here.

I attended this conference in Bangalore earlier this week – it was most interesting with hundreds of company execs, entrepreneurs and thought leaders speaking about product innovation, development strategies and emerging technologies.

I will list some major themes I picked up at this conference:-

In India, next decade belongs to Product development and these will have major impact on business and social empowerment.

Hiring best practices and product quality differentiate successful organizations and individuals from all others.

In the new world, individuals and professionals which take initiative and drive innovation will take their organizations to leadership positions. This applies to large and small firms alike. These individuals will be the ones in most demand going forward.

Design and Image is crucial in the new world – this translates to User Experience and Engagement in all we do. Think Apple or Amazon.com

The big opportunities are in Smartphones / tablets, Mobile, Cloud, Analytics, Big Data, Social – all usual suspects. These are all big enablers of new innovation and present opportunities for growth. At the same time, these technologies create a level playing field. As a result, larger firms now find that small startups can cause immense disruption in the former’s usual businesses – hence executives in the larger firms must think like entrepreneurs to create new opportunities and ensure customer delight via superb delivery and engagement.

India has 900 million feature phones and only 10% of these are smartphones. So Mobile Apps and Enterprise Mobility offer incredible opportunity growing forward – this is true of western markets as well, as Enterprises there adopt mobile in a big way for all their applications. Mobile has truly gone from Mobile Also -> Mobile First – >Mobile Only strategy. Now, major new programs and initiatives in leading firms are planning to do a Mobile only strategy.

Cloud Computing is the new way of doing almost everything in IT for end clients – IT investments are shifting to Cloud at an incredible space – so much so that most new projects or initiatives are looking at Cloud as a preferred solution over an in-house hosting strategy.

Big Data is not a fad – with all the Social channels and frenetic transaction activity, Big Data is a problem which is growing in size everyday – as such, it offers major opportunities for solution providers and product developers to slice, dice and analyze, in order to achieve actionable intelligence and business decisioning.

Open source technologies are now fully mainstream and driving major new development.

Collaboration and leadership are key aspects in driving success. Most new innovation requires good collaboration and partnership skills as well as passion to succeed.

Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO of InMobi, said that the three critical factors for success for a startup are :

Thing Big – you can do it

Hire the best

Focus on product quality. Good products sell themselves

Naeem Zafar, Founder and CEO of Bitzer Mobile as well as more than a dozen startups earlier, said that for each CEO, the main responsibility is “Don’t run out of money”.

Deep Kalra, Founder and CEO of MakeMyTrip, spoke about his entrepreneurial journey and the Indian startup ecosystem.

The event is one power-packed event with almost 1300 delegates which included almost 150+ blue-chip speakers and thought leaders from India and abroad. The presence of so many Silicon Valley luminaries seems to indicate that action in Bangalore is accelerating and many westward folks are now looking east to this part of the world for next revolutions in tech and digital.

Kudos to Nasscom, Nasscom President Mr Som Mittal and all the dedicated NPC volunteers for putting together what we consider is a remarkable show.

Ford’s Telenav solution and Chevrolet’s MyLink are adapting cellphone map/navigation applications for safe and convenient use inside vehicles as a way around costly in-dash navigation systems. The $25-a-year Car Connect app allows Android phone users to feed their driving instructions to the screen of Fords equipped with Applink. The Chevy Spark uses the BringGo app to integrate iPhone or Android cell phones. The use of such cellphone app links might make the integrated navigation system option obsolete, John Quain writes.

Recently I am hearing a lot about the fact that the IT budgets are increasing coming from the CMO department. Indeed “CMO is the new CIO”. Why this trend ? Reasons are manifold :

a) Customer touchpoint is the new focus : Customer touchpoint is where the action is now. Whether it is Customer Engagement, Customer Service, Customer Access or anything to do with orchestrating these, these are the hot topics now for enterprises large and small. This essentially means mobile devices, mobile apps, social, local, cloud, analytics etc. To be more specific, the big themes now are Mobile, Social, Cloud and Analytics – all that relate to customer facing technology or orchestrating the customer experience.

Who owns the customer experience – it is the Marketing office and not really the CIO office.

b) Image and Branding : In this world awash with media and content, image is everything. Social and Digital Media are increasingly commanding higher order of CXO focus and budgets. It is now possible for unknown brands and firms to accelerate their visibility overnight via a variety of Social and Digital channels. Traditional firms often find themselves late to this party or reacting to their customers who are already present enmasse on these Digital Channels. Simple 140 character tweets can embarass monstrous corporations in matter of seconds. Image and Branding on new media has become a herculean challenge for large firms and leveled the playing field for consumers, smaller firms and startups.

Who controls a firm’s image and branding, CMO again. So CMO will drive investments in Social and Digital technology which is increasingly important to firms’s reputation and respect in the marketplace.

c) Backend infra is mature : Increasingly, one finds that backend infrastructure in traditional IT departments is mature – the big bang Oracle, SAP and middleware projects are stable and it is increasingly hard to find those big ticket IT projects now. Most of the transformational IT is now happening at customer edge and not in backend tech or networks. Of course, there are exceptions, like 4G and LTE investments by wireless industry and Big Data projects to slice and dice the voluminous data banks that now exist.

However, save for a few big items on backend, backend tech is now mature and even Oracles and SAPs of the world are now developing products for the front-end, where the growth multiples seem better going forward. The customer front-end, of course, is owned by the CMO and not the CIO.

d) Emergence of new tech : Web 2.0 is now being replaced by Web 3.0 – a world of seamless mobility, applications, and front-end use cases. Mobile Payments, Mobile Media, Mobile Devices, SME Cloud Apps, Social Networks, Location Services, hyperlocal marketing are the big glamour areas of tech now where most developers and firms want to focus their energy now. Apple may have started the trend of massive consumer revolution when it created the iPhone, Amazon has brought Web services to SMEs on a massive scale, Google is innovating in search and platforms, Facebook has amassed the largest number of eyeballs around the world. These kind of firms are at the forefront of consumer revolution in tech devices and applications.

Again, tackling this world is in the primary perview of the CMO with it’s mobile strategy, social and digital technology, connected consumer and advertising.

e) Consumerization of IT or COIT : COIT is a popular term now – where consumers walk in into the workplace with their consumer devices and force the CIO to adopt to their devices and apps rather than the other way round. The concept of a Social Enterprise is being adopted by all large firms to drive employee engagement, mindshare and collaboration. Gen Y employees are forcing their employers to change their ways and business practices to make these corporations employee oriented. Talent crunch is forcing firms to adapt to the employees wishes rather than the other way round. Hyper-informed customers are, in turn, pressurizing companies to provide relevant product information and fantastic customer service.

Certainly, CMO is the consumer and people expert and not the CIO. Most of the COIT trends require CMO to play a key role in the tech strategy.

To be sure, the CIO is not going anywhere and remains the bulwark of operational infrastructure and execution framework within the firms. The tech jazz (and related budgets), however, are now owned by the CMO due the macro trends outlined above. Indeed, CMO is the new CIO in the tech world.

As if you have not heard enough about iPhone 5 already, here is more of it

Apple announced iPhone 5 on Sept 12th. The other big thing that happened that day was Quantitative Easing version 3 announcement by US Federal Reserve – one wonders, it was a synchronized announcement – just kidding.. Certainly, some market analysts have said that iPhone 5 may do more for US GDP growth than Fed’s QE3..amazing..

Well, intentional or not, both the announcements have a dramatic impacts – QE3 will accelerate the stock market rise around the world, fuel more inflation etc. Apple announcement will lead to Apple maintaining it’s hegemony in the smartphone ecosystem. I know, I know, some of you are on side of the table which is less than enamoured by the new iPhone 5. However, our take is that the ecosystem of Apple is much too strong and still underestimated by most. The vertical integration of iTunes, Macs, iPhones, iPads, licensed content in there, seamless charging via iTunes, cross-device synch capabilities are so intense and so transformational in the tech world, that few can match up with Apple prowess over the marketplace. Apple ran out of online inventory of iPhone 5 in one hour of opening the sales..validation enough of a huge pent-up demand out there.

Lack of NFC or some other popular features, now commonplace in other smartphones, will not deter iPhone 5 in creating breakthrough success once again for Apple sales. What most people fail to realize about Apple is that it does not usually toe the line created by others – it creates new models which, in many cases, become the benchmark over time. Coming back to NFC, Apple did bundle a feature called Passbook in the new iPhone 5 – a loyalty and coupon management feature – this is not payment enabled but it could evolve into a Digital Wallet. Many leaders like eBay, Square, Paypal are making do without NFC in Mobile Payments and quite successfully at that. It is likely that NFC may never become the mainstream mobile payment tech if Apple and others listed here do not push it.

As to what Apple iPhone 5 does pack, it has a laundry list of neat features :

As far as we can visualize, we still feel demand for iPhone 5 will be back-logged and people will go gaga over this device the world over. Apple mobile leadership is far from being threatened, not until they make major blunders or others truly can provide a neat vertically integrated ecosystem. So far, we see only Amazon as being anywhere close to providing the vertical ecosystem with Kindle platform. Samsung tried but it is missing many major components for creating a complete ecosystem, music partnerships to begin with, among other things. Google does not try as their focus is entirely different – to monetize via search engines on Android devices.

So – for now, it is Apple’s world to rule in the mobile arena, until somebody else “does an Apple” on them.

Today Chetan Sharma, prominent Wireless Consultant in US and a friend of CellStrat team, released a great summary of Mobile Data market updates from Q2 2012 quarter (some are US specific stats while others are global stats). The key points from Chetan’s note are :

US Mobile Data market is $19.3 billion in Q2 2012. Data now accounts for 42% of US mobile industry revenues.

In terms of Y/Y growth, Connected Devices segment grew 21%, Prepaid 12%, Wholesale 4%, and Postpaid was flat. AT&T, AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon are number one respectively in these categories.

Prepaid subscriptions exceeded 100 million for the first time in the US. This is also indicative of US’s downward economics trends. Postpaid growth is slowing in the US.

iOS and Android are the two dominant mobile OSes. Windows Mobile may be third but with a very tiny market share.

Samsung dominates global device unit shipments – however Apple has 70% of global mobile device profits in spite of just 5% of device market share. Samsung now leads in every major unit sale category both on the world stage as well as in the US. However, profits are a different equation where Apple overshadows its rivals like Gulliver on the Lilliput land.

Ranking for top mobile data profits globally includes China Mobile, Apple, Verizon, AT&T, and NTT DoCoMo, in that order.

AT&T and Verizon have launched shared data plans (a first – where two or more folks share the same data plan on a family account) in the USA.

US continues to sell over 40% of the world’s smartphone every quarter thus making it the most attractive market for OEMs.

The overall data consumption in the US market in 2012 is expected to exceed 2000 Petabytes or 2 Exabytes. The smartphone data consumption at some operators is averaging close to 850 MB/mo. As we move into 1GB range along with the family data plans kicking in, you can expect the data tiers to get bigger both in GBs and dollar amount.

Globally, one sees a Mobile First approach by firms now evolving into Mobile Only approach. Leading apps and services like Facebook, Twitter, Pandora are already operating in the world where mobile is driving majority of their user engagement. Expedia, Fandango and others are seeing the early signs of migration into the mobile dominated world. Very soon, mCommerce revenues will overtake eCommerce revenues.

Q2 2012 again saw tremendous activity in the mobile commerce and payments space with a lot of announcements from the operators, Internet players, and startups as well as the retailers and the ecommerce players. All are vying for a piece of the mobile wallet. Much more to come in the next 12 months. On the retail side, Starbucks is a player to watch as it tries to become a more active participant in the digital ecosystem.

Race to a billion – China is first nation to cross a billion subscriptions. (I guess India is second, massive population helps of course)

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) refers to technologies that allow both wireless and wired systems to communicate with other devices/systems of the same ability. M2M started with point solutions, created for one specific task. However, in the not too distant future we will get to a point where it is more common for devices to be connected than not. Then we get to the Internet of Things (IoT) where we might get a sharing of data across different sectors and between different devices in a way that wasn’t envisioned when M2M first came about.

The ROI for connected machines is rapidly expanding to a much wider market. E.g.

Both traditional vertical market applications and new cross-sector services are likely to exist, based on a data rich environment. These will vary immensely between the enterprise, or B2B, and B2B2C worlds. Connected homes and connected cars provide current early examples of the direction this is heading towards.

The Internet of Things is about utilizing data from billions of connected devices – the value is in the data. In order for this to happen, much more is required to get these devices to connect seamlessly. Getting billions of devices connected easily and cost-effectively in a way that allows interoperability is critical and does not yet exist. Evidence of this lack includes the high return rates (up to 90%) for home alarm and control products. M2M platforms are one key to solving this challenge.

Storing consumer data in the Internet of Things will create new security issues involving personal data and its acceptance quite different from those related to enterprise data storage. Educating consumers about the security and privacy of data – and its benefits – is and will be increasingly important. The value of stored data highlights key differences between B2B/enterprise and consumer behavior.

Facebook, where users consciously share information with others, provides a possible device model – set up your devices and tell each what you’re willing to let it do. Data ownership then becomes an issue. Who owns the device, who owns the data and how far can you share it? Also, how do I opt-in or opt-out? This is a business issue as well, making the right tools available so that the information can be shared in a secure way.

Scaling up and collecting massive amounts of data is a major challenge. There is a need, though, not to get too far ahead of the reality of the way people see value coming from applications. For example, automobile manufacturers had only a few people managing connected cars a short time ago; now hundreds are involved, across multiple departments. E.g. in case of a car crash, car sends data like location and impact of car crash data, to nearest fire station, police station, hospital etc. That creates a major challenge that must be resolved before creating new business models and sharing data with other industries.

M2M Market Examples :

VERTICALS

FEATURES

VALUE

Automotive

• Vehicle Tracking

• Traffic Control

• Manage a Fleet of Vehicles

Use less fuel

Have fewer Accidents

Gain logistical efficiency

Integrated IT / Finance

Security

• Environmental / Subsidence / Utility AMR & AMI Monitoring

• Home Security

• Water, Gas, and Electricity Meter Reading

Conserve electricity

Match supply & demand

Lower costs

Increase collections

Finance & Retail

• ATM / EPOS / Kiosks/ Stock Control / Gaming

• Digital Signage

• Point of Sale : Speed / Reliability / Security

More customer interaction

Interaction on Demand

revenue opportunities

Healthcare & Medical Devices

• Patient Monitoring

• Telemedicine

• Emergency Vehicle Response

Fewer Doctor visits

Higher quality of care

Real time patient assessment

Overall M2M areas could be:

Utilities

Fleet Management & Logistics

Connected Vehicles

Remote Assets Monitoring

Digital Signage

Smart Security

Smart Vending

ATM/POS

Public Services ( Safety , Transport etc. )

Smart Homes

Consumer- Connected Devices

Telemedicine… and many others…

Even when verticals are quite similar regulations may vary on a regional basis; individual countries may decide that health data should stay within its borders, for example, requiring data localization. Cellular M2M has been built around the telecom voice model but is actually in the Internet world. Regulators and operators need to adjust their perspective accordingly. Many operators recognize that data is a larger business than voice in the future, with LTE needed for data, not voice. The data business should not be constrained by the traditional voice model.

Scalability is about getting connectivity quickly but it’s not all cellular and doesn’t rely entirely on telcos. Large volumes of devices will be connected with WiFi or 802.15.4 radios connecting to an existing wired network. There are connectivity challenges within that part of the ecosystem as well.

M2M projects take anything from 12 to 24 months. Customers need this time reduced to get to market faster in any way possible, including getting help on device deployment, speeding up certification, and so on. Some of the biggest debates in contract negotiations involve data ownership, data usage, and indemnification around IP; these are major legal issues. Liability is another major legal issue — what happens when eCall doesn’t call or an alarm system doesn’t reach the central station?

Beyond connectivity, who will be responsible for the acquisition, analytics, and storage of large quantities of data? Some M2M customers generate hundreds of Gigabytes of location-based data every month, sending information updates every second; multiply this by 10s of thousands then millions – these are very sophisticated problems. IT companies are more likely to solve them than telcos although some are in the midst of M&A activities with data analytics and “big data.”

Cisco announces an EA Series of routers that are cloud and app enabled, promising to significantly enrich what consumers can do with their home networks. While Netgear and D-link introduced their approaches to app supporting and cloud supporting networking products CES 2012, Cisco, which didn’t have anything to announce at CES, turns out to be the first to materialize the new concepts.

Cisco unveiled a line of Linksys Smart Wi-Fi routers that promises to change the face and the body, of home networking.

Cisco cloud connect is a Web-based portal that is designed to make it possible to quickly manage multiple home networks from anywhere in the world. And in the category of “home network”, Cisco now includes home appliances, not just computers and electric equipment. The company says it has been working with the top device manufactures to simplify the process of getting their network, “Cisco now includes home appliances, not just computers and electronic equipment.” The company says it has been working with top device manufacturers to simplify the process of getting their network products as such as TVs and home appliances – connected, and to get them communicating more with one another to offer new consumer experiences.

In a demo, Cisco showed how a user can remotely, via the Cisco Connect Cloud portal, carry out tasks that were quite impossible before, such as finding out the status of a refrigerator.

Brett Wingo, a Cisco vice president and general manager, said the new line of cloud-enabled routers will be game-changing products that “enable users to take total control of their home, and not just the Wi-Fi networks.”

The new routers are all true dual-band Wireless-N routers, with the EA2700 supporting the 300Mbps standard on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, the EA3500 also supporting the 450Mbps standard on the 5GHz band, and the EA4500 supporting 450Mbps on both bands. They come with one USB port to host an external hard drive and work as a network storage server with media-streaming capability. On top of that they also support IPv6, guest networking, and other popular features found in the previous E Series models.

Cisco says that Cisco Connect Cloud will work with just the EA routers and not the existing E Series, with the exception of the Linksys E4200v2, which will get the support via a firmware update. The supported routers will also be able to run apps designed to quickly add or change their features and settings.

The new Linksys EA4500, EA3500, and EA2700 routers are available now and cost $199, $139, and $99, respectively. Cisco promises that a full range of its cloud-enabled services will be available by June.

On Wednesday, Chipmaker Intel Capital has announced a $100 million Connected Car Fund to invest in technology innovation in the automotive industry. The latest theme based fund follows the $300 million Ultra Fund released last August and it is fourth such fund till date.

The Intel Capital Connected Car Fund will be invested globally over the next 4 to 5 years in hardware, software and services companies developing technologies to promote new, compelling in-vehicle applications and enable the seamless connectivity between vehicles and any connected device such as mobile phones and sensors.

Staci Palmer, general manager of Intel’s Automotive Solutions Division, said- “The car is the ultimate mobile device.” By 2014, automobiles will be among the top three fastest-growing areas for connected devices and Internet content. Intel’s experience in developing personal computing, software, security and cloud computing technologies will bring a new level of innovation to the car to enhance the driving experience for both drivers and passengers.”

Connected cars would have the context awareness to offer the right information at the right time to keep drivers and passengers informed and entertained, while maintaining optimal safety. Once the car becomes connected, it can also communicate with the cloud, the transportation infrastructure and even other vehicles to provide additional services such as advanced driver assistance and real-time traffic information to optimize
the flow of traffic.

Areas of investment for the Intel Capital Connected Car Fund will include technologies that advance the next generation of in-vehicle infotainment, advanced driver assistance systems and seamless mobile connectivity. This includes new in-vehicle applications and development tools, next-generation ADAS technologies and multimodal capabilities such as speech recognition, gesture recognition and eye tracking optimized for the
connected car.

Orange and medical device vendor Sorin are to launch a cardiac implant that enables patients to wirelessly upload data about their heart condition to a doctor, according to Thierry Zylberberg, Executive Vice President, Head of France Telecom Healthcare, speaking to Mobile Health Live ahead of Mobile World Congress. The connected pacemaker will launch in Europe and the US from this summer.

The two companies have been working together for some time on the pacemaker, which enables users’ heart data to be sent to a doctor by 3G, 2G or landline. Currently patients have to visit a hospital every three or six months to have an implant’s memory downloaded. Read More